I’m at the Konica Minolta dealer show in Los Angeles to see what Konica Minolta has been working on for the last 16 months. The short answer? A lot.

The event officially kicked off yesterday as one of the industry’s most dynamic figures took the stage with his new wearable technology – the Taylor 2000. For those of you that haven’t met Konica Minolta US’ President and COO, he’s just awesome. He’s got a great attitude, he’s charismatic and he’s the kind of guy you’d want to hang out with anytime, anywhere – not just at a work event. Most importantly, dealers love him. I have to call him out and say this is officially the first KM event I’ve attended since he took the helm where he didn’t mention Kansas basketball. Rick is no doubt still mourning over their loss Monday night in a tight one. But I digress.

The company is doing great. While the market is flat and competitors are spinning their wheels, Konica Minolta is killing it with revenue up $800 million in just six years. A lot of people were skeptical about the All Covered acquisition and many still try to point out that it’s a bad strategy and it won’t work. It’s time for you naysayers to suck it up and admit you’re wrong. It does work and they’re making bank with this strategy. All Covered expects to bill about $200 million in 2015. That’s more than some competitors do in the US printer market in a year.

All Covered had some cool stuff they were showing here including a new approach to desktop computing that is a lot like the old mainframe. There’s no computer, just a monitor and a keyboard. Users access apps on the screen such as Word, Outlook etc. Everything runs on a browser so it’s much more secure and end users get a common look on their smartphone, tablet and desktop. Customers pay a monthly fee per user per app and again, it’s far more secure than traditional computers. They also talked about their Cloud offering, which you can see here:

Konica Minolta now has a similar strategy for the ECM market, making a few key acquisitions last year. ECM is expected to bring in $40 million in 2015 and will serve as yet another area of growth. KM execs hinted that more acquisitions are coming and reading between the lines it appears that there may be some pretty big ones. I don’t know if these will come in the ECM space or if they’re buying dealers or what but stay tuned, you know I’ll be all over it when they pull the trigger.

The company is very healthy with net income up 200% and operating income up 17%. They were also rated #1 in customer loyalty for the 8^th straight year. Production print sales were up 23% and dealers increased their sales in this area by 22%.

3D printing was announced last year and Konica Minolta dealers are on board as both dealers and branches are actively and successfully selling these products. In fact, right now Konica Minolta is installing a $500,000+ 3D printer that is the biggest single unit order in their history. Of interest; dealers have sold more than half of the 3D printers KM has sold since the program started. They now have 4 printers they market;

• ProJet 660 Pro
• ProJet 3500 HD Max
• CubePro
• Cube

They also had a 3DMe Photo Kiosk at the product fair that allows customers to walk up, get their face scanned, then pick out a character that would be made and shipped to them. It was pretty cool and I can’t wait for my Andy toy to arrive.

Another area of focus is Mobile printing where they have received 250,000+ downloads of their app. I’d like to see them track prints from this app but so far they don’t so we have no idea how widely that’s being used, but we can agree, that’s a lot of downloads.

Konica Minolta will be coming out with lots of new products in the next few months including more sorely needed A4 (some with finishing-YAY). What else is coming?

• The bizhub 4750MD healthcare MFP
• A 3D printing education program from schools to help kids learn how to use the technology
• bizhub Remote Access that allows users to run the printer UI from their smartphone
• Midnight Print Management from Virtual Systems
• PageDNA Web-to-Print software
• The MGI JETVARNISH 3DS digital solution for spot UV coating and 3D embossing
• The WATKISS PSQ224 booklet-maker
• A LASERMAX roll-to-sheet feeder
• New “de-featured” A3 products that should cost about 20% less than their more robust bizhub counterparts

There were several big announcements at this event. Konica Minolta is opening their imaging products to dealers from the KMMI Radiology, Ultrasound and IT Services group. They’re also taking on an EFI VuTEK product to compliment their wide format offering from KIP.

And one of the biggest stories at this event was the announcement of their partnership with MWAi to provide the first ERP solution designed specifically for copier dealers. While a lot of analysts think this is over the heads of most dealers, I spoke with several dealers that are already working with MWAi and a couple that are signing on at this event. Another major announcement was the new sponsorship of the PGA. I’m getting the feeling Rick will sponsor anything if he can get tickets out of it. Konica Minolta also announced a major alignment with Clover for recycling and aftermarket products to support MPS. It’s interesting that KM’s partner LMI wasn’t at this show and I wonder if that relationship will go away at some point.

There were 72 “stations” at the product fair – almost double the number from last year. Partner companies like EFI, MWAi, ESP, etc. were spread throughout the floor and mixed in with KM’s own offerings.

Konica Minolta has invested heavily in their Innovation Center where they are identifying and investing in new and emerging technologies, such as Robin, a work place organizing company. Customers load an app on their smartphone, tablet, etc. and beacons placed throughout the company can track where everyone is. It’s great for managing conference rooms, collaboration, etc. Just click the link so you can see what they really do – they explain it better than I can.

Konica Minolta showed biometric iris authentication technology at the event from EyeLock. There are unlimited applications for this product that is exponentially more secure than anything in existence. This technology may eventually help eliminate the need for online passwords. It can also be used in thousands of other security applications such as authenticating on your computer or MFP. One dealer is already planning to integrate the consumer version of the product into their own portfolio.

They’re working with robotics company KnightScope on technology aimed at making the world a bit safer with robots that can see, hear and smell. There are cameras, heat sensors, air quality sensors and much more. These robots are already being used in some interesting ways such as at hotels as delivery service robots that bring towels or room service to a room. Super futuristic. They’re also working with Savioke who develops delivery robots (see below).

Why is Konica Minolta succeeding when so many competitors with comparable products are simply maintaining or failing? It’s because they trust and believe in their dealers. Dealers are still an integral part of Konica Minolta accounting for 53% of their sales, up slightly from last year. I was at a meeting recently with another brand you all know and in the one-on-one session with their executives I got into a rather heated conversation about why they don’t offer some of their “high-end” products to their dealers and their response was, “because dealers can’t sell it.” Konica Minolta feels the exact opposite. Empower the dealer and if they want to sell it, help them sell it. Don’t constrain your partners; enable them.

Are KM dealers going to flock to the medical products? Nope, but a few will. Are most of them going to sell the high-speed production inkjet they showed here? No, but again, those that do – and believe me there will be a small handful that will – they’re going to make a lot of money and Konica Minolta will reap the benefits. Why any manufacturer would withhold product from their channel and thousands of feet on the street is beyond me and Konica Minolta totally gets that. Maybe that’s why they sold over $30M in product in two days.

I love the strategy around their Business Innovation Center (BIC). It reminds me of what PARC used to be for Xerox. But instead of a think-tank where they come up with inventions and products, BIC identifies future technology and gets behind it. They have evaluated over 500 “products” so far and the above items and partnerships are the result of this research. Do they know what they’re going to do with the technology? No. Will it make it into their products? Maybe. There is no definite here, they’re just working with super smart innovative companies and trying to think how they can integrate with them and make their own products and offerings better.

One thing I do love about this company is like me, they “get” social media and they use it. Sales people and analysts are competitive (understatement) and they essentially made a game out of tweeting. If you’re too old to know what tweeting is, ask your kids (or grandkids). It’s the most effective way of marketing yourself in the world and it’s essentially free. Konica Minolta had a #hashtag for the event, as all vendors do these days. But to encourage tweeting, they had a leader board outside the sessions that showed who the top tweeters were.

So people were tweeting their brains out, and retweeting other tweets. What this did was put thousand if not 10’s or 100’s of thousands of eyes on Konica Minolta’s brand, on their messaging, on their statements, on pictures from the event, etc. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was brilliant.

Their product floor was excellent with a heavy emphasis on production gear. Like past shows, solutions were spread throughout into areas organized by vertical markets. Watch the short video walk-through that I did, it’s almost as good as being there yourself.

Konica Minolta has so much going on it’s mind numbing. I feel like I could write for hours more on this but hey, it’s a dealer event, which means cocktails are coming soon, so I’m done for now. Here are my final thoughts. Konica Minolta is doing great. The show was top notch and they spared no expense on their product fair, on their entertainment and on their stage for the keynotes. The stage was just awesome with four massive vertical displays that looked amazing. There is no doubt; Konica Minolta was making a big fat statement with this event.

My one concern is they seem to be going in 100 directions all at once and while there’s continuity in many areas, there’s a lot of technology that’s just out there and doesn’t seem to fit. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but I do worry they could lose focus on their core area of print. They just seem to have a lot on their plate and I don’t know how they can keep balancing it all. Still, their numbers continue to outpace the industry so until they slip up, it’s a moot point. They told me the way they manage it is by compartmentalizing everything. Time will tell. But for now, they are firing on all cylinders and are a force to be reckoned with.

~Andy